Chapter Text
When Klaus Mikaelson ran from his family that night, the deep feeling of betrayal made his heart ache in agony, and the loneliness stuck with him as he felt his biggest fears coming true. He felt like a hot poker had been stuck through his heart. He wanted to curl up and never wake up again. He just wanted to lie beneath the trees and slowly become one with their roots. He felt hopeless. He felt lost. He felt hurt.
He hadn’t talked to any of his family in nearly 90 years, but they were still there. He had always kept tabs on Ellijah, just like Ellijah had no doubt done the same to him. A grand falling out indeed, one that they both played their own roles in. Elijah liked to play the noble knight, but Klaus saw beneath the facade. Elijah was hurt, and he wanted Klaus to hurt too. If there was one thing they had all inherited from their parents, it was their need for retribution. Ellijah liked to play forgiving, but if you ever truly hurt him, he made sure to hurt you back.
He had taken part in the daggering, but Elijah was their brother; he could be forgiven. He was just the bastard mistake their mother made.
There was never a doubt in Klaus' mind that his sibling would pick Elijah over him. Everyone would pick Elijah over him. They had done the same when he was human, before the world had corrupted him and turned him into what he was.
He knew his siblings hated him, but there was nothing he wouldn't forgive them for, eventually at least. By keeping them daggered, they couldn’t reject him – and now they had. They were finally rid of their bastard half-brother, the mistake that should never have been born. They wouldn't seek him out; they wouldn't ask to be a family again. Rebekah finally saw him for the monster he was. She despised him; she planned his death. There was nothing but hate as they looked down upon him.
'Stupid, useless boy'
'good for nothing'
'bastard'
Mikaels' voice haunted him still, and yet now he couldn't distinguish it from his siblings. They all banded together to create a chorus in his mind.
He left with a scowl, his eyes wet from tears that would never fall. A false bravado as he marched towards the doors and announced that he could see what they wanted. They could play happy family now that he was gone. He would be the one to leave. He had marched out the door without a second glance, walking towards the woodlands where they once grew up.
The emotions were too much. The grief suffocated him like a noose wrapped around his neck. He shifted; it was painful, but he deserved this pain. It was nothing compared to the pain that his siblings, his family, had inflicted on him. Let him hurt.
His wolf form offered a new lease on life, a break from reality. He was still him, just more muted. His thoughts came slower and simpler. His emotions were more manageable, less focused on the past. He survived, driven by the instincts of the wolf. He ran deep within the nearby forest and didn’t stop.
He wasn’t sure how long it was, but he noticed that as time went on, it was easier and easier to give in to the wolf. He became a passenger in his own mind. He started hunting down prey, starting with rabbits and hares, then deer if he smelled one. He drank water from nearby streams. He rolled amongst the dead leaves of autumn and scratched his back on low branches. He slept in caves or enclosed areas. He fought with a particularly annoying mountain lion that kept stealing his prey. He was just a wolf until one day he smelled it.
It was a smell he was familiar with, but now it smelled like heaven. He could smell it from miles away; it carried in the air the way the smell of freshly baked bread carried itself through the house. He wanted it. He could hear the beating of the heart, the pumping of blood beneath the skin. He needed it.
It was his own fault, really; he allowed the wolf to take over his mind, push all the pain and the hurt to the back of his mind. He was nice to feel it, but he neglected the other part of himself, too, the side that called for blood.
He found it quickly. It was a man, a lone hiker through the woods. He was young and scrawny, not much meat but more than a rabbit. A lot more than a rabbit.
He watched him through the trees, stalked him as he ventured deeper and deeper into his forest, his hunting ground. As the sun set, the hiker started setting up camp for the night. He started a fire with kindling and put his backpack against a tree. He had a small tent that he hummed while putting up. It was blue and stood out against the trees. He finally finished his routine as he sat, adding more wood to the fire and pulling a small wind-up radio from his pockets. Never once had he noticed the wolf hiding amongst the low-lying trees. Never once had he noticed the way the wolf stalked him, toyed with him, preyed on him.
Klaus didn’t know why he held out so long. He was salivating over the scent of him, his prey. His food. He was sick of playing, of observing; he wanted to sink his canines into the man and tear him apart as he screamed. He wanted to feel his bones crunch in his jaw. His blood as it travelled down his throat like honey. He wanted to tear him limb from limb and swallow every morsel of flesh.
He pounced rather feline-like despite his canine physique. His prey screamed, reaching for a knife in his pocket. The wolf wouldn’t let him get the chance to fight back; he didn’t have time for games any longer. He had waited long enough. He was hungry.
He felt the arm crack between his canines as he dug in, the blood running down his throat. He needed more of it. That sweet nectar. He tore into the neck and felt the burst of blood explode in his mouth. He was in bliss. He tore into the man's torso next, the skin tearing away like paper between his teeth. He lost himself in the pleasure, the wolf tearing the hiker apart and eating all it could find. It was monstrous; it was glorious. This was the true nature of a hybrid, the need to hunt melding with the need for blood. He wanted more.
He awoke groggily. Tiredness clung to his muscles in a way he had long forgotten. He felt the ache down to his bones, screaming they were in the wrong place. It was strange being human again. He must have shifted back in his sleep. He felt uncoordinated, as if his mind hadn't caught up to his change in form yet. He missed being the wolf.
The sky was still dark, and the fire was nearly out. It must have been early hours in the morning by now; the winter nights were always longer. He was as naked as a bald cat, coated thickly with dry and flaky blood. His hands felt sticky, and he could feel the remnants of flesh beneath his fingernails. Beside him was the remains of a human heart. He had taken bites from them before, more as a fear factor, but he had never eaten one. He looked at the remains of his victim's heart beside him, and as he ran his tongue across his teeth, he could clearly feel the remnants of his current meal stuck in his teeth. It was tough like an overdone steak.
His victim lay next to him, or what was left of him at least. The arms looked more like crushed pulp that had been through a meat grinder than human limbs. He had taken great fervour in the pleasure of breaking the bones in his jaws. Only one was still attached to the body. The other lay at the other side of the fire.
The legs had been torn off in his frenzy, but unlike the arms, the bones were still in one piece. He still remembers how he tore the thighs apart. The way he swallowed it down in chunks as he reached the flesh with arteries running through it. It made him sick. It made the wolf in him preen. He was disgusted with himself; he wanted more.
The head was the only untouched part despite how much blood covered it. It had been separated from the body rather early on, hopefully giving his poor victim a quick death.
The torso had clearly been ravaged for its organs. Klaus had a distant memory of the way the wolf had salivated as it bit into the liver.
He wished to feel something, anything over the large pit that had developed in his stomach; instead, he could only find comfort as he stared at the stars above him.
The sun had long since risen when he moved again. His limbs screamed at him to shift back; his body felt uncoordinated, and each tendon felt like steel.
The blood stuck to him as he tried to wash it away in a nearby stream. His reflection was of a feral man. His cheeks were slightly too skinny due to surviving on animals for god knows how long. His hair was slightly too long and began to curl around his ears. He supposed he could only be grateful it hadn't matted.
His face was coated in thick, dark blood, and small chunks of meat clung to his face the way crumbs do to a child's cheeks. Is this what he was now? A monster? A canabilitic beast who hunted and feasted on poor hikers in the American forests. He hadn’t felt like this since he was freshly turned, the way he was disgusted at the thought of drinking blood but found pleasure as it rolled down his throat like a rich wine. The wolf was part of who he was, the monster.
He couldn’t shift for that long again, lose himself so deeply to his animalistic nature. Even now, he felt the urge to hunt down another animal and tear it apart. To feast on its flesh. Letting the wolf take over was not wise, and it had carried traits into his human form.
His thoughts were slow as he arrived back at the camp. He added more wood to get the fire going again, raided the backpack of the victim, which had luckily prevented the hiker's spare clothes from being damaged and blood-soaked. They fit slightly too large, but they would do. He found the ingredients to make a coffee; hopefully, that would awaken his mind more. He found a bag of what looked like dough, as well as honey; he could do with some sweet food right now to distract him from the taste of flesh that clung to the back of his throat.
Sitting in the middle of the woods, eating honey-soaked bread, reminded him of his childhood. Kol would always steal the jar of honey when no one was looking.
He didn’t know what to do without his siblings. For the past thousand years, he had wanted nothing more than for them to be happy, together. Perhaps he should’ve knelt and begged for their forgiveness, but what would have been the use? They had obviously decided they wanted nothing to do with him anymore, and Klaus wasn’t about to crawl back to them like some touch-starved cat. He was a lone wolf, or well, a cannibalistic hybrid, apparently.
No, he was on his own. He didn't need his siblings; he would survive without them. He needed a plan if he was truly going to cut ties with his siblings; then he would ensure that they couldn't find him. Elijah would check the bank accounts first. It was usually his spending or compelling that caught Elijah's attention. He couldn't compel a bank person to give him a lot of money; it attracted too much attention, which is why old vampires knew they had to make money through business. Elijah handled that; Rebekah and Klaus just spent it. He could steal an item here and there from shops, but he needed to watch out for those in the know. That meant he currently had a dead man's tent and camping gear to his name. Brilliant, he was back to where he started a thousand years ago. Just on his own.
The first thing he needed to do was find out where the hell he was; he couldn't have been that far from civilisation if the belongings in this bloke's bag were anything to go by. Then he needed to get this bloody cannibal wolf thing managed. He couldn't go around eating people. Leaving dead bodies drained of blood attracted enough attention, never mind with their organs excavated.
He needed to learn more about werewolves; he needed to understand more about them, more than that they shifted once a month, and they could bite.
That's what he would do to take his mind off his siblings, he thought, licking the honey butter mixture from his fingers. Klaus was going to find a pack.